We are committed to creating a community of learners that support and help each other grow! While this may look different remotely, we are confident that we can establish a positive virtual community.

Our focus the first 6 weeks is to get to know our learners, working to build trust, safety and relationships with our students & families, promoting a supportive culture of collaboration.

Creating consistent structures and routines with our students is important in building ownership & self awareness. We will work early on to establish our "Hopes & Dreams" for our year together and begin to craft goals to help focus our learning.

The Social and Emotional health has been a top priority within our learning community and continues to be at the forefront of our minds, especially in this period over the past few months. Our remote model will focus on building connections with our EK learning community, helping to foster and build relationships with each other, which is central to our overall health and well being.

Developing resiliency, empathy, and a healthy mindset for growth & learning will serve students well in their futures as they develop their identity. This is foundational to the work we engage in and we can leverage these circumstances as an open opportunity to grow social- emotional competency.

• Choose Love SEL Curriculum

• CASEL Competencies

We will be following our K-5 competencies, focusing on life-long learning, inquiry, & critical thinking. Core reading, writing and math are grounded in real-life authentic learning opportunities. Students will develop skills to become more independent thinkers and will engage in ongoing feedback loops and instruction to promote reflection and build knowledge.

Student voice and choice is central to our practice and helps shape learning opportunities to build independence & self awareness. Students will work with teachers to build their own personalized learning goals and co-create learning pathways to promote engagement and self-direction.

Assessment is a meaningful, positive, and empowering learning experience for students that yields timely, relevant, and actionable evidence. (7 Principles of Competency Based Learning)

How Assessment will be utilized at EKES:

• We will take the first two or three weeks to focus on students’ physical and emotional well-being and to strengthen relationships as foundational to learning.

• Assessments will be designed to address individual learning needs and will take priority in this coming school year. Teachers will prioritize measures closest to classroom instruction to address learning needs.

• Grading will focus on feedback. As we are building a culture of feedback, our grading will be built from evidences of learning and teacher feedback on those evidences.